Inside is what looks like an old library book, complete with shelf code and date stamps of its borrowing history. The finished product consists of a shrinkwrapped package that – perhaps fittingly – resembles a TV box set. You suspect that this collaboration with Abrams must have taught Dorst a few things about the nature and creation of fiction. With S., Abrams is a sort of "novelrunner", having conceived the project but left the prose to someone else: Doug Dorst, a US novelist and creative writing tutor. On programmes such as Lost and Alias, Abrams operated as what American TV calls a "showrunner", overseeing every decision and episode but not writing every episode himself. And I say "come up with", rather than "written", because one of the conventions challenged is that of authorship. Abrams, though, has come up with a novel of such structural daring that the first task of the audience is to work out a way of reading it.
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